Exploring French portraiture and sculpture from the late 1850s until the first years of the 20th century, the 74 portraits from special exhibition “Faces of Impressionism: Portraits of the Musee D’Orsay” reflect the origins and flowering of one of the world’s most beloved movements. Road-tripping to Fort Worth to see this rare display, French art history professor Estelle Fonteneau gleefully told me, “I’m getting goose bumps. We’re about to see some of my closest friends!” I had already met some of Estelle’s “friends” on a trip to Paris 17 years ago, but this time I anticipated a more personal encounter….

Sitting on the Amador peninsula, with the high-rise towers of Panama City on one side and the ships of the Panama Canal passing on the other, I am mesmerized by the recently opened Biomuseo in Panama City, a ‘must-see’ for anyone visiting the region. The museum is a one-stop for learning about the nature of the land, as well as the urbanization and cultural history of the nation. Walking along the recently completed Cinta Costera urban park from Panama City’s historic 17th Century colonial area Casco Viejo, you first see the vibrant colors of the Biomuseo’s roof stand out against…

Al Iannuzzi took a gamble when he decided to double down on the environmental and health impacts of his company’s products. But Ianuzzi, senior director of environment, health, safety & sustainability for Johnson & Johnson, believed in the need to embed sustainability into the company’s supply chain enough to build a brand around the new process. His team launched Earthwards in 2009, and by our 2011 interview, Iannuzzi’s confidence in the growing product line had soared. “We have 16 now,” he told me in a recent conversation. “Our goal is to produce 60 Earthwards products by 2015.” Today, Iannuzzi’s team…

There they were at the awards ceremony, talking like old chums at a table ten feet away: the 43rd president of the United States, the founder of EDS and the CEO of Exxon Mobil. Seated shoulder-to-shoulder, the trio loomed like a phalanx primed to defend the rich and the powerful. But then a boy with a severe disability took the stage and with extraordinary composure, told over a thousand attendees how the Boy Scouts of America had changed his life. Many in the mostly male audience wept. As we rose to applaud him, the boundaries that separated us melted away,…

Senator Ted Cruz, a vocal climate denier, is now the subcommittee chairman over the Space, Science and Competitiveness subcommittee. This new position brings a fresh wave of concern to science advocates who fear the effects of legislators with a historically anti-science stance taking budgetary and agenda-setting control of NASA. And this is only the beginning. Florida Senator Marco Rubio will soon control the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. This is the committee that oversees coastal management, the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the organization that keeps tabs on the status of our oceans,…

Book Reviews

Christine Bader’s book The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: Girl Meets Oil offers hope and practical advice for anyone trying to stimulate meaningful change in our multi-stakeholder, shareholder-beholden, profits-focused world. Doing this kind of work is hard, but then again, pretty much anything ... [click to read]

Jeana Wirtenberg knows sustainability is about people. Living, caring human beings – who get things done. It’s not “green.” Or “eco.” Not goals or dashboards. Not on their own, at any rate. It’s people who make these things actually happen. Sustainability is people at ... [click to read]

If you’ve ever thought of dropping a book on your boss’s desk, in the hopes of sparking a Ray Anderson-type conversion, here’s a tip. Don’t use the new IPCC report: It’s gloomy, terrifying and a muddle. Try this instead: Andrew Winston’s business transformation book for ... [click to read]

Cities are heating up at double the rate of global climate change, with major implications for human health. Managing urban heat is just as important a response as reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the benefits will be felt much sooner. Cities should ... [click to read]